Where the Mississippi Flows "Der Ain't No City Nowers Like If Talks”. . .

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 May 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

Where the Mississippi Flows "Der Ain't No City Nowers Like If Talks”. . .

THE disastrous floods that are sweeping Louisiana have focussed attention on the picturesque and historic old city of New Orleans. In the following’ article, written for THE SUN, Mr. Will Lawson tells of a visit to this cosmopolitan centre where public notices have to be printed in nine languages—and then are not understood bv those strange folk, the Acadians.

HE Southern Pacific’s Sunset Limited rolled through the undulating lands of Louisiana approaching New Orleans on an autumn evening and the likeness to cer-

tain parts of Australia and New Zealand was very striking. Instead of willows there were the cottonwoods; in place of lucerne, sugar cane, and where turnips or kale might have been there was cotton. The low-lying character of the country was evident In the numberless creeks or bayous—all leading into the Mississippi—on some of

which large steamers lay. And in the dusk we came to the Mississippi and, later, New Orleans. The coloured porter of the Pullman was chanting what sounded like a hymn about this “Queen City of the South” and when we asked him if he was glad to be in hi 3 home town again, he said, “Why suh! Dey ain’t no city nowhers like N’Yalins.” That is how they pronounce the city’s historic name in Louisiana. New Orleans is more than 200 years old and has a population of nearly half a million, half that of Sydney, but as a port its exports and imports are double those of the big Australian city. It is the second port of the United States, with Philadelphia a close third and San Francisco away down below it. Yet this great meet ing place of trade on the Mississippi is pretty well one foot below the river level in all its riverside and business places. The levees or embankments, which keep the river out, have been in place for centuries, often broken by flood waters; often strengthened and improved.

These levees form the landings for the river steamers which bring down from the interior, cargoes of wheat and hides and from more adjacent places, cotton and cane.

The wharves which berth the ocean ships are built over the levees and extend for 21 miles up and down the river. The sea is 90 miles away down the broad muddy stream which grows ever broader till at the river mouths the banks can scarcely be seen. Some idea of what would be the effect if New Orleans were wiped out as a port by the roaring flood waters, may be had by imagining the destruction of Sydney as a port, and Nexv Orleans serves a greater territory. The selection of this low-lying site in the curve of a big river was brought about in the first place by the action of British privateers early in the 18th century, when Jean de Bienville, a French-Canadian, was trying to make a settlement at the mouth of the river. They would not leave him alone, and in despair he went up-river and started his settlement at New Orleans in 1718. In 1723 it became the capital of Louisiana, but in 1762 it was ceded to Spain, its citizens bitterly resenting the transfer. In 1803 it was bought back as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Despite efforts to Americanise the city, it remains what it has always been, a cosmopolitan place where people of many nations are living in happy co-operation. Every public notice has to be printed in nine languages for the 17 different nationalities there, and that does not cover the gibberish spoken by the Acadians, a clan of “poor whites” who have lived on the bayous for centuries. The mingling of whites and negroes on the waterfront is a strange sight, for the negro appears happy and hearty, being just what he expects to be, while the “poh whites,” who are a puny lot, appear to move under distraint, at a pace known locally as the “summer crawl.” Canal Street, which was once a canal down which cane was rafted, is the dividing line between the old city and the new, and on the French or Creole side of it the imagination is carried back over the years, through the many exciting periods of this city’s existence. In the old Cabildo, or Spanish prison, which has stood for nearly 200 years, a historical museum has been founded.

Before the railways took the passenger traffic from the river steamers, New Orleans was an important centre socially and there are still preserved one or two of the famous bars where amazing Southern drinks were mixed and served. Now they provide icecreams and soft-drinks! And the river steamers are all cargo craft. These steamers come down-stream piled high with sacks or bales, with two gangplanks slung from the mast, like derricks, and looking like the claws of gigantic lobsters. The puntlike bow is pushed against the sloping levee, which is paved with cobble stones. Down swing the planks and the negro deckhands swarm ashore with the freight, while winches lift the heavier stuff. Wheat from the middle-west is brought down in bulk in steel barges and stored in elevators along the extensive waterfront. Another big transhipping business is done in bananas from South and Central America. Fleets of fine steamers, which carry passengers, too, ply between both coasts and New Orleans, the only large port in the Gulf of Mexico. Time and again the city of New Orleans has been threatened by disaster from flood. Several times the water has trickled over the levees, but always some miracle has saved it.

Whether it will again, will be an anxious question for many.